1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to apparatus for the handling of DIP tubes, and more particularly to apparatus for the automatic loading and unloading of shipping tubes used for packaging DIPs.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Integrated circuit electronic components are usually manufactured in dual in-line packages (DIPs) comprised of elongated bodies with a plurality of legs extending symmetrically down from the sides of the package. DIPs are normally packaged for ease of handling and for shipment from the manufacturer to the customer in long U-shaped (in cross-section) tubes containing many DIPs. At some time following manufacture, the DIPs must be marked and tested, usually by automatic or semi-automatic equipment. In conventional practice, the DIPs are manually unloaded from the tubes into the testing or marking device or the tubes are hand loaded into the magazine of a mechanical unloading system. Following processing, the DIPs are then reloaded into tubes.
As the manufacture of DIPs becomes more automated, the manual placing of the tubes to have DIPs loaded therein, or to have DIPs unloaded therefrom, is not economically attractive because it adds labor cost and slows down the assembly process. A method and apparatus for automatic handling of large quantities of randomly oriented tubes and loading or unloading DIPs from them is disclosed in the copending application of Ben S. Stillman entitled "DIP Tube Loading/Unloading Apparatus", Ser. No. 612,035 filed May 18, 1984 now abandoned and assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
Although the apparatus disclosed in the above-referenced application works quite well with most types of DIP tubes, it has been found that the tubes used to contain the larger sized DIPs such as the relatively new type 600 DIPs (DIPs having width of 0.600 inch) for example, because of certain relationships of their configurational dimensions, tend to become interlocked with each other in a manner that tends to cause jambs in the input hopper of the original Stillman device referred to above.